Posted on 09/18/2014 3:23:14 PM PDT by cotton1706
The Kansas Supreme Court sided Thursday with Democrats attempting to remove their candidate from the ballot in Kansas’s razor-tight Senate race, a blow to incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ reelection prospects.
The withdrawal of the Democratic nominee in the race, Chad Taylor, clears a path for independent Greg Orman to challenge Roberts one-on-one. Polls show Orman leading in the contest in a head-to-head matchup.
Although Taylor announced earlier this month that he was ending his campaign, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach had ruled that Taylor’s name must remain on the ballot because his withdrawal failed to meet the precise requirements of Kansas’ election law.
But the court dismissed Kobach’s argument, agreeing that Taylor satisfied the law when he announced his decision to drop out.
The court refused to address Kobach’s additional claim that Kansas Democrats are required to name a new candidate to replace Taylor. That leaves open the prospect that Kobach will try to compel the state Democratic Party to name a new Senate nominee.
The Kansas Democratic Party issued a statement slamming Kobach but did not respond to a POLITICO inquiry about whether it would name a new candidate.
Roberts immediately panned the ruling, slamming the court as aligned with Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I’m so surprised.
KS Supremes are a Democrat (Kangeroo) Court. Much like the FL Supremes of the 2000 Presidential election infamy (which was an all-Democrat court).
bfl
Are they high? That actually helps Roberts. It’d be like Bush eliminating Clinton and only having to run against Ross Perot.
Sounds like a Torch Torricelli moment in Kansas.
Not quite, the Independent in this case “was” a Democrat that did not win.
“Polls show Orman leading in the contest in a head-to-head matchup.”
Orman leads Roberts in the polls by 5 or 6 points.
Yes, except Perot was never ahead in the polls.
Looking for another meltdown vanity...
"Precise requirements" (like the actual WORDS of a law . . . or of the Constitution itself) are of no interest whatsoever to Democrats.
Polls show a lot of things. Remember how Dewey defeated Truman or Carter trounced Reagan?
SOS is playing hardball, requiring the rats to name another rat on the senate ballot. If the rats refuse, it becomes a huge issue.
Either way, the rats and the MSM are chasing fool’s gold in Kansas. Let them shoot their wad there.
left wing independent?
A much better explanation can be found here:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=65645
From that report:
” If the court was going to issue such a simple, straightforward unanimous ruling, why did it take so long? No doubt more was going on behind the scenes than this simple ruling. We probably will never know what was going on in judicial chambers. A cynic suggested to me the court delayed so much so there would be no time to litigate over whether Democrats have to name a replacement on the ballot.”
Indeed. Of course the Court dragged its feet. They found on the narrowed grounds possible, avoided dealing with the replacement issue on equally narrow grounds, waiting until the last minute and hot footed it out of town. Very typical of the Sebelius Supreme Court that sits in Kansas.
Kobach has given the Dems 8 days to name a replacement and extend the mailing deadline to accomodate that demand. Not sure that was a good idea.
Orman is the left wing independent. With the democrat out, the liberals won’t be splitting their votes and the moderate republicans will likely vote for the independent (liberal stand-in) because that’s what moderate republicans do.
This does not help Roberts at all. Without a Democrat line on the ballot, the Democrats cannot vote a straight party ticket as they are wont to do. The hope is that they will vote for Orman who is, of course, really a Democrat. They are also hoping that many Republicans will vote for Orman thinking that he is truly an Indepdent. Quite a few Freepers think that he is, so this is not so farfetched.
So if a person cast a party line vote does Orman get the vote in his tally?
Of course it is a good idea. Force the rats hand. If they refuse to name a dem candidate, it becomes a huge issue helping Roberts, will galvanize GOP
You can’t really do that in Kansas. You must check the box next to the name on the ballot, but since there will be no name identified as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate contest, the voter will have to choose someone else or not vote on that contest.
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